Conventionally, marketing of a product such as a die for machining is performed through marketing activities in which a sales person visits a working factory or the like to conduct business activity, which is so-called door-to-door selling style.
In the door-to-door selling, when such a product as a die is proposed to a customer, a sales person merely selects a product(s) from many products through paper catalogs to explain the product(s) therethrough.
Also, when a die required by a customer is a die with a special shape which is not a standard die, the sales person brings a die specification drawn on such a sheet as a paper which is required by the customer back to a design department of his/her company. In this design department, design and check of drawings (verification about whether or not the special die can be manufactured) are conducted and the result is notified to the sales person. The sales person prepares an estimate for the die on the basis of the result and visits the customer again to present the estimate and receive an order of the product. The information about this order reception is input into a database in a head office of the company to issue an instruction to a manufacturing department after he/she comes back to his/her sales station or the like.
In such a process, however, there is a drawback that a product(s) cannot be presented to a customer(s) efficiently. Also, there is another drawback that, when a sales person is asked by a customer, he/she cannot answer the question efficiently.
Furthermore, when a die with a special shape (hereinafter, called special die) is ordered, such an order is brought back to the company and a design and check of drawings are conducted in the design department. For this reason, there is still another drawback that an estimate including an appointed data of delivery cannot be presented to the customer immediately, which results in that a long time is required from an order reception to delivery.
Simultaneously, since a sales person brings back a specification of a special die based upon a handwriting indication, an oral indication or the like to give a person(s) in the design department the specification, there often occurs an error of an original instruction of a customer or misunderstanding of the sales person. For this reason, there occurs claims from customers because manufactured products do not meet specifications.